


the trials of childminding and midnight dysphoria

by moondrift



Series: managing demonic house guests, for dummies [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bill Cipher learns how to be a better person, Ford and Lee adopt Mabel and Dipper AU, Gen, Human Bill Cipher, Protective Bill Cipher, Protective Ford Pines, Sort Of, Typical Gravity Falls Weirdness, au where Ford did NOT fall into the portal and made up with his brother earlier in the timeline, billford if you squint, mildish levels of violence, no beta i die like an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24281392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moondrift/pseuds/moondrift
Summary: At three in the morning, Ford is called into town to prevent a paranormal disaster from ripping up Gravity Falls by the roots and tipping it sideways.At three twenty-five am, Ford is forced to leave before the babysitter arrives and must trust the care of his infant niece and nephew to Bill Cipher: ex-ruler of the Mindscape, dream demon extraordinary trapped in the scrawny body of a would-be psychopath and the same creature who has, for a lack of a kinder phrase, attempted to mutilate reality since time immemorial.Yeah, good luck.Or Bill Cipher babysits with mixed results.Oh, and fends off a giant child-eating Leech. No biggie.--Edited* 1/22/21 in preparation to continue this story/series. Slight setting adjustments have been made for consistency.
Relationships: Bill Cipher & Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines, Bill Cipher & Ford Pines, Bill Cipher/Ford Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines, its very light - Relationship
Series: managing demonic house guests, for dummies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119230
Comments: 10
Kudos: 96





	1. well after midnight

It was 3am when Stanford received the call. 

He hadn’t slept a wink. Neither had Mabel and Mason, in direct correlation 

Stanley was out of town and he wouldn’t be back for another hour. “I’ll be right down,” Stanford muttered into the phone. He rolled out of bed, fumbled for his glasses, slippers, and staggered down the hall.

When he opened the front door the first thing that caught his eye was the swirling vortex of sickly green and magenta gathering in the sky above the treeline. The second was the sheriff’s pale face and bloodshot eyes. 

Over the howl of the gale and the hammer of raindrops pelting the side of the shack, Ford caught the details. The rain had been predicted on the local forecast. The twister had not. A resident who lived further into the woods had claimed to have seen tentacles protruding from the eye of the storm. It was a potential calamity in the making, not only to the residence of Gravity Falls but for the supernatural creatures who lived in the surrounding woodland. Without them he would have no subjects to study, no specimens to collect. Though arguably a single unnatural storm should not be enough to cause the whole ecosystem to collapse, he knew better than most the fragility of certain forms of life.

But the townsfolk, he reminded himself, came first. 

Stanford Pines was the only one capable of solving this problem. He knew it. The townsfolk knew it. He rather despised the fact Stanley had made them aware of his purpose in Gravity Falls, the townsfolk were entirely too curious and their curiosity threatened his research but that was neither here nor there. Either way, it was difficult to meet the sheriff’s eyes, knowing what he sheltered in his home at this very moment. The guilt gnawed persistently at his heart and anxious thoughts weighed heavily on his mind.

There were 1,480 people living in Gravity Fall Oregon. 

There were five members of his household. Two helpless infants, himself, Stanley, and a dream demon: unfathomable malicious power trapped in the fragile body of a young man who simultaneously looked a decade older than Ford and five years his junior. 

Ford had always considered himself pragmatic. The lives of the many outweigh the few. 

“I need to get my equipment. Start the truck.” He told the sheriff

Stepping back into the foyer, Stanford threw his jacket over his shoulder, hastily moving through the shack for everything he could possibly need to handle a supernatural storm and threw it all into a duffle bag. Thinking fast, he dialed the babysitter, Susan. She said she could be there in 30 minutes. He couldn’t wait that long. The wind was picking up and he could hear the distant snarl of the storm as it tore through the forest.

He searched for Bill. 

He found the demon in the kitchen, knuckles deep in a can of frosting. 

The entity froze as Stanford flicked the light switch. In the half-seconds between the light caught in that thin membrane behind Bill’s retina. A persistent haunting reminder that the body Bill now occupied was only mostly human. 

What mattered now, was that Bill, an entity with no definable mass and size had been confined to a finite space in the approximate shape of a person who busied himself with consuming every sugary substance he could get his hands on and Stanford couldn’t trust him with a ten-foot pole and certainly not with the lives of his helpless nephew and niece.

“Bill,” Ford hesitated. He took a breath and pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “A Supernatural anomaly is threatening the township. I’m leaving to take care of it, hopefully, I won’t be gone long.” 

The demon continued to stare unblinking. Ford’s lips pursed. “You will have to watch the twins while I am gone. They are infants. Do not expose them to extreme changes in temperature, the shack must stay entirely baby proof and I mean it, Bill. No blood rituals, goat sacrifices, or whatever that was last Sunday. Do not give Mabel and Mason sharp utensils like knives, forks or- no, let’s keep this simple. You are not to touch them. You are not to go near them. At all.”

“Aw, you take the fun out of everything, Sixer.” Bill drawled. He rolled his eyes. What was left of his right eye did not respond correctly. 

Ford’s voice sharpened. “I mean it, Bill. Nothing will happen to my niece and nephew while I’m gone, I am clear!” 

“Sure,” Bill propped one elbow on the counter and licked the frosting off his fingers. 

Taking this as the most amiable response he will get out of the demon, remarkably subdued at that, Ford continued. “I called a babysitter, she will be here in 30 minutes.”

The sheriff’s voice called from the foyer. “Ford! Some squid bullshit is coming down from the storm!”

“I’m on my way!” Ford howled back. With one last departing look at Bill, he reluctantly left the shack.

* * *

The front door slammed shut.  
  
He watched Sixer climb into the jeep. The vehicle pulled out of the driveway and barrel down the dirt road until it disappeared from view under the pelting fog of rain.  
  
Bill ran his tongue over his teeth. He loved teeth. Human teeth were delightfully versatile. Blunt as a tombstone and twice as able to pierce flesh. It was about the only thing he liked about this vessel. It was loud and noisy and did things he didn’t like. If he wasn’t agonizingly aware of molecules cycling through its pores, it was each breath through its lungs or the twisting of muscle. Every nerve had its own _special_ ache. And Bill hated it. He hated sharing his autonomy.  
  
But what Bill couldn’t stand the most was the _weight_. The sense of _conformity_ and _structure_. It didn’t feel right. Bill couldn’t move through space how he wanted. He couldn't _be_ how he wanted. He couldn’t do much of anything he wanted. A constant pressure compressing his body and _this wasn’t what he wanted_. Possessing a vessel wasn’t so much fun when he couldn’t _leave it_.

Fifteen passed by and Bill grew bored of the kitchen. He slid off the counter and slinked off for the living room.  
  
A playpen had been set up in the middle of the room, supported on two ends by the coffee table and the couch. It was a flimsy and pathetic thing, but that seemed to be enough to trap the wiggle-sacks.  
  
Mabel and Mason Pines were chubby little things with sticky hands and wide eyes. They had four to six teeth each (Bill sometimes counted, sometimes he didn’t) and could not yet form a coherent thought let alone control their own limbs. They stumbled clumsily throughout the day and were only just beginning to understand spatial dimensions.  
  
Bill perched himself on the back of the couch. His lips curled over his teeth in a sneer as he remembered Standford’s rules, and brought one leg back up so he sat precisely at a two-foot diagonal-distance from either infant.  
  
Mabel noticed him after a minute of staring. She squealed and rolled herself over. She had more coordination than her brother and pushed herself to her feet with barely a stumble. She waddled on to the bars of her confinement, clung to the bars, and bobbed up and down. “Up! Up!”  
  
“No can do, Star’. I can’t go near you or touch you. Them’s the rules.” He showed his teeth, but the little wiggle-worm wasn’t the least bit intimidated.  
  
She stuck out her bottom lip and viciously shook the bars of her confinement. Mason eyed her warily. He knew what was coming.  
  
“Up!” Mabel demanded. Her voice was beginning to teeter towards a wail. “Up!”

“Jeesh, alright, I know a desperate crowd when I hear one.” Bill scratched at his ear. Standford would kill him if he so much as ruffled a hair on their heads. Like, legitimately, Sixer might finish the job he started months ago. Bill knew he was at the end of a very tight leash. And yeah, ok, he’d been pushing it the last two weeks, but the dynamic had changed. He had to know where he stood. It wasn’t like he could read minds anymore. Yet another piece of reality that made Bill bristle. 

The vessel once again did not agree with his thoughts and sought to punish him by constricting his airways and restricting its flow of oxygen.  
  
Mabel was scowling, meanwhile. Her eyes were suspiciously wet.  
  
Bill bared his teeth again and flicked his wrist.  
  
A blue glow cloaked the infant’s body. Gradually, she began to levitate. Mabel stared as her feet left the ground. She wobbled in the air, and for a heart-throbbing beat, he thought he hadn’t escaped the inevitable and she would burst into tears. Instead, she burst into intelligible laughter.  
  
Bill cackled with her. “Do me a favor, kid. Throw up on the carpet so we can get back at o’ Sixer!” He spun her in the air. Mabel gerbbled nonsensically, happy as a clam.  
  
Mason Pines, however, did not like that. His lip wobbled. His face grew red. Bill didn’t notice, distracted as he was with rotating the other infant like a rotisserie chicken.  
  
Then Mason began to cry. It started as a soft sniffle. Escalated with grabby hands towards his sister. And then. He _screeched_.  
The sound was so shrill and so loud, Bill slapped his palms over his ears before he could think. This lapse in concentration broke his flow of magic and sent Mabel tumbling. She screamed. 

“Fuck!” Bill dove off the back of the couch sideways, flung out a hand, and with a wisp of his power caught Shooting Star a millimeter before her nose crunched into the carpet.  
  
Hands shaking, he slowly lowered her to the ground. 

Mabel landed on her hands and knees with a soft ‘oof’. She blinked wide-eyed at her wailing brother, who stumbled on all fours and sort of bonked his chubby cheek into her shoulder in a clumsy hug.  
  
“Sheesh, you’ve got attachment issues Pinetree. I wasn’t gonna drop her, y’know.”  
  
The infant glared at him in pure hatred. Stanford was wrong about his brood mate’s kids. They were little gremlins. It would’ve even impressed Bill if human infants weren’t useless flesh-worms.  
  
Bill grumbled and crawled off the couch to sulk the crawlspace under the stairwell.  
  
Sixer had tried to follow him once. He had been convinced Bill was trying to set the shack’s aging foundations on fire. He wasn’t wrong. Bill had tried that before but discovered shortly after two matchboxes that the wood underneath the shack was too damp to start a proper fire. Bill snorted at the memory.

As Stanford discovered, his body was too broad to fit between the supports and his hands too pudgy to wedge into the narrow gaps Bill had been stuffing stuff into. Bill was rather proud of his collection; lost socks, toenail clippers, two of three scissors, and, of course, the TV remote. 

Oh, Bill knew what he was doing. It was rather tame for his tastes but it frustrated Sixer to no end with little to no consequence for Bill. In Ford’s own words: “-little things. I can’t be angry over the little things.” Oh, but he was, Sixer just wouldn’t admit it. And Bill took no small amount of delight in that.

Bill waited in the dark of the crawlspace for another fifteen minutes, knobby knees to his chest and arms looped in a knot through the limbs. The dark gave him the illusion of more space. And with it a new sensation that felt like squeezing.

At the sixteen minute mark, he expected the doorbell to ring. Or maybe to hear bone and flesh on wood. He heard neither. After another minute or so, Bill crawled out of the crawlspace and slunk over to the living room window. 

The sky had grown darker. Lightning illuminated the treeline. A black crown of teeth gaping skyward. 

Bill scowled impatiently. Sixer was taking his own sweet time with that vortex. If Bill had his power back, even a fraction of it, a snap of his fingers would have that thing right outta the sky. And he wouldn’t be here alone with weathering flesh maggots. He wouldn’t be here, period. 

Bill pressed his knuckles to his cheek

There was no sign of a car, no headlights on the road, no blinking lights in the woods. The rain continued to pelt the window.

There was a strange twisting sensation in his stomach. 

She wasn’t coming. The stupid flesh sack who was supposed to watch the wiggle-worms wasn’t coming.

“Ba! Bah-ha!” One of the wiggle worms exclaimed.

“Me too, kid. Me too.” Bill groused. He tried to ignore the fleshling’s babbling but Shooting Star was insistent. He looked over his shoulder to find her standing up on wobbly legs, using the bars of her prison for support. Pinetree was attempting to mimic her but he kept falling down.

“What was that? Sorry kiddo, I don’t speak flesh-worm. You’re gonna have hung up and try again later.”

A look of concentration passed over Pinetree’s face. He plopped backward on his rump, took one of the rattles confined with him, and with surprising force, threw it with the clear intention of hitting Bill. 

The rattle bounced harmlessly off the coffee table. Pinetree scowled.

Bill smiled. “Well damn, I didn’t think you’d do it.” 

“Bah!” Shooting Star insisted. And when Bill only stared at her blankly, she dropped her head to the bars and bit down angrily.  
  
“Oh! So, you’re hungry huh? Well, that’s too bad. I’m not allowed to use the toaster oven, or the microwave or frying pans! You’re gonna have to settle for that fragmented fruit-slop, o’ sixer gives ya.”  
  
As he spoke, he realized Stanford _had_ specified a need to feed the flesh-maggots hourly. Something about them consuming a lot of energy and the threat of a ‘social worker’ if he left them alone for too long. 

Bill returned to the kitchen where he’d seen Sixer stash the bottles. Bill didn’t know the first thing about making formula and he didn’t really care about the process so long as he didn’t have to do it so he was happy enough to discover Sixer had some pre-prepared in the back of the fridge. He slammed the door shut and headed back into the living room.

Bill tossed both bottles over the walls of the mini-prison. For some reason, _THIS_ is what Pinetree found finally cracked up at. 

Bill bared his teeth. (Oh, how he _loved_ teeth) and laid down on his stomach at exactly two feet from the pen. _There_. Stanford couldn’t accuse him of getting near the twins _or_ allowing them to fall into starvation. _He’d done as requested._

Watching the little flesh monsters feed and stare with wide eyes at him, in turn, was incredibly boring. Bill crossed his arms under his chin and dozed off. (This vessel has _abysmal_ energy retention. Bill hated it. Hated it and its stupid chemistry and stupid metabolic processes.) 

He woke twenty minutes later to the sound of babbling and the hollow plink of rain on the roof. 

“Bahhl,” said Mabel. She never stopped talking, did she? 

Bill cracked the vessel’s eye open. 

Mabel was flush to the bars of the pen. She’d stuck one arm through and was making grabby hands for his fingers. “Bahll,” she said and something was wrong. Bill tasted something metallic and oily on the roof of his mouth.

Bill pushed himself up on his elbows. 

Pinetree sat right up against his sister’s side. He wasn’t looking at Bill. He was staring out the window.

It was pitch black. Or rather, it was like someone had taken a black tarp and plastered it to the window. The tarp had no texture, and opened into a gaping red hole, crowned by row after row of crooked white needles. The black expended. In. Out. In. Out.

Bill decided he wasn’t looking at a tarp.

“Well, well, well I haven’t seen a sucker like you in a long time. Whatcha doin’ here? You lookin’ for a handout?” 

The leech let out a low groan, slowly dragging its sucker-like mouth down the glass pane. Bill strolled over and gave the glass a good tap but the creature hardly seemed to notice. 

With every breath, the glass fogged. Its paws, resting on either side of its mouth were bear-like in shape. Each claw was the length of a human finger. 

Yeesh, what a nasty piece of work. Bill loved it. In another time and place, he might’ve invited the thing to hang out with his crew. Another guest for his party!

But here and now? Bill didn’t think Stanford would appreciate a child-eating leech. Let alone the fact its entire existence centered around eating _abandoned_ children. The implications would not go over well. 

Under the weight of the leech, the windowpane began to groan.

“Now hold on there pal, I didn’t say you could come in! Didn’t your mother teach you manners? You gotta ask first.” Bill bared his teeth and pushed back, the glass creaked but the strength of his vessel was rather feeble. Bill narrowed his eye at the thing but it ignored him.

The Leech swayed its head, peering over Bill’s shoulder. 

The twins were quiet and blinked up at Bill innocently.

“Eyes up here fang-face!” Bill shoved himself in the beast's view. “I don’t want you here, scram! There’s nothing here worth eating. Trust me, I’ve tried everything. The carpet’s got mold in it and I’m pretty sure there the rats already got to everything good in the basement. Y’know, before they were _stripped_ of their _flesh_.”

The beast groaned. Slumping its massive body against the window. It dragged its claws with it and left a trail of slimy green droll down the window panel. It was transfixed on the wiggle-worms.

The vessel's internal organs were going funny pulsations. Bill was getting angry now, the vessel was going things he didn’t want it to do at precisely the worst time to do it, and the stupid leech wouldn’t take him seriously! Bill was done with people not taking him seriously 12.4 million years ago!

“You’ve got the wrong place, fish-breath! Nothing’s been abandoned here.” Bill growled, gearing himself up to bluff his way out of this. “O’ Sixer is right around the corner. If you know what’s good for you you’ll scat before he gets back!” Bill bared his teeth maliciously. “I’m sure he’ll _love_ dissecting your _internal organs_.”

The beast grunted and dropped off the window. It disappeared under the frame but Bill knew it wasn’t gone yet. It shuffled around the perimeter of the shack. 

Bill hissed and rattled and went door to door to meet it. Nothing could convince the beast that the wiggle-worms hadn’t been left to die. 

Bill was here dammit! Why wouldn’t it acknowledge him?

The third time it disappeared from the kitchen window above the sink, Bill froze in the middle of the room. From the archway into the kitchen, the living room and the stairwell were also visible. He spun around but didn’t see it. Where had it gone?

The shack was silent. Rain pelted the roof.

Wait... 

Bill spun on his heel.

Pinetree sat very still in the middle of the pen. Mabel was also very quiet. She was watching him. Neither of them had made any noise as Bill had stalked through the shack, from one entrance to the next. The shack felt very open suddenly.

Pinetree made a small noise. 

Bill crouched down next to the pen, he set his cheek to the carpet and peered under the rabbit-eared TV, where the wiggle-worm was staring. 

He met the horizontal eyes of the beast and the shack was plunged into darkness as the lights went off. 

There was no screaming. No harsh intake of breath or the clatter of falling china or the singing of shattered glass. The beast didn’t move and neither did Bill.

As his eye adjusted to the grey light, Bill became aware of the beast’s wheezing. It’d squeezed itself through the chimney, the lower half of its body was still trapped between four walls of tightly packed brick. The upper half of its bulbous body had ooze under the firewood rack, Bill hadn’t seen it right away (he cursed this stupid vessel’s lack of vision) because the TV had been shoved haphazardly in front of the fireplace.

The beast had one arm stretching under the TV, it smelled of rot and earth. 

The fireplace had old wood on the rack. 

Bill grinned maliciously. 

Perhaps a little more harshly than was strictly necessary he kicked the pen back a pace and shoved himself forward with the momentum. His hands latched onto the beast’s arm and ignited blue.

Something like burning whale filled his nostrils. The beast’s slimy skin convulsed underneath his palm. Boiled, skin popping like fish in a river under an electric rod, and the thing slipped out from under his grasp.

There was a bit of scuffled afterward. The beast retracted its body, and really the giant thing was analogous to a large snail. Bill toppled the TV over to get at the firewood as it retreated into the chimney. 

Bill slammed his palm down on the bark, blue licked at his wrists but refused to spread. It couldn’t be damp, could it? It’s been sitting there, collecting dust for at least six months! Bill hadn’t seen Stanford or Stanley change it once since he’d been forced to play captive here!

He threw both hands over the logs, dug his nails in until he felt splinters. _No dice_.

The beast gurgled. A low groan and Bill felt the creature’s humid breath over his hair.

The vessel’s heart leaped to his throat. Bill gritted his teeth. He didn’t love them so much now.

He felt something wet hit the flesh of his arm, and finally, something sparked under his palm. 

Bill rolled back as the firewood went up in flames. The fireplace crackled and popped with moisture and with an agonized howl, the giant leech retracted up the chimney.

Bill scowled as he realized the thing wasn’t leaving the chimney. “Hey, what’s the hold-up? I told ya to scram!” He hissed. 

The leech gurgled meekly.

Well, wasn’t that just great? Best case scenario the smoke slowly roasted the thing before it spilled out into the shack and suffocated the wiggle-worms. Worst case scenario the smoke filled up the shack before the leech died and o’ Sixer would have to attend a funeral of three. If Bill didn’t keep the fire going the leech would crawl back out and bolt for his midnight snack. So his choices were, death, death, and more death! Delightful!

Grumbling, Bill turned back towards the twins and reconsidered his options. They looked fine, tired but wary, a few more minutes of quiet and they’d fall right asleep.

The living room was too open, Bill decided. The leech might have left sooner if it hadn’t seen them. But how had it found the wiggle-worms in the first place? Had it caught their scent? Bill thought back to the last time Ford had brought them out of the shack. That had been a week ago. He’d taken them out to see the town quack. 

The wiggle-worms weren’t yet old enough for the new-baby smell to fade, Bill had forgotten about it over all the other human-related smells. The Leech could have caught wind of it on Ford when he went into town. 

Ugh. 

Bill peered over the bars of the pen. Pinetree was nodding off against his sister's shoulder. Shooting Star had fallen asleep sitting up.

It took a few minutes of carefully concentrated levitation to maneuver the wiggle-worms up the stairs and into the attic. He felt better up here. Stronger. 

Bill set them down in the middle of the rug. It was circular, vaguely resembling a magic circle. As soon as Bill set him down Mason tried to crawl away. Mabel continued to count sheep. Bill felt her dream but the connection felt sore and cold. Bill ignored it. The vessel acted funny in response to these particular thoughts and it was always distinctly unpleasant.  
  
“Nah ah, Pinetree, you’re staying put.” Bill nudged him back into place with his feet.  
  
The attic was starting to smell tantalizingly like burning leaves. Not quite as good as burning flesh though. Bill counted the time by the fleshy vessel’s heartbeat. Jeez, how long would it take that thing to dry up? The smoke hadn’t filled up the shack yet but it certainly would soon!  
  
Talk about a rock and a hard place. At least Stanford couldn’t say Bill hadn’t tried. His powers were limited here, what else could he do? The only thing this stupid sack of flesh was good for was processing substances and maybe a minor hex or two! What's a hex gonna do to a child eating leech? Nothing, that’s what. O’ four-eyes had explicitly told him, he couldn’t go near or touch the wiggle-worms. It wasn’t like he could put a do-not-see-me or do-not-smell-me charm on them or ... wait.  
  
Bill couldn’t physically touch the twins but Sixer hadn’t said _anything_ about not touching anything else. He had the whole attic at his disposal, now, what could he... ah.  
  
A slow grin spread across Bill’s face.  
  
Perfect.


	2. 5am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some minor edits: due to bill being bill I am considering bumping up the warning to "graphic" though it feels a bit pretentious to me to say that it's a graphic description of violence. I thought I should mention that things do get more violent in this chapter, just in case. 
> 
> Also, no worries, Mabel and Dipper are absolutely fine throughout.

The temperature was approximately 62 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind direction was- 

Ford winced. The blunt force of the gale was inconsistent. It lashed through the redwoods, bent ancient and gnarled roots, and the whole treeline seemed to bow with it. 

Locating the epicenter of the storm was easy enough but the journey to get there proved more difficult. The storm did not care for roads or trails and only a quarter into the chase, Ford had left the sheriff behind for an all-terrain vehicle. 

And then, like most phenomena in the region surrounding Gravity Falls Oregon, things began to change inexplicably. 

Normal, everyday twisters did not form over mountainous terrain. When a twister encountered a ditch or a steep incline it would continue on its path, or ‘jump.’ It was also unheard of for a twister to ‘blip’ for lack of a better term. Visually it was as if someone had folded the sky, very quickly between two giant fingers. The twister disappeared in this metaphorical pinch, only to reappear again several miles to the south.

Ford estimated he had 30 minutes before the next blip. 

He checked the time again. 

The howl of the gale torn over his ears. Ford held on to the door of the red Jeep until his knuckles turned white. 

In front of him, the twister made steady progress towards town. Between churning clouds, Ford tracked a streak of fluorescent green. 

The wind nearly drowned out the approach of a familiar car. Ford glanced over his shoulder and felt something in his chest twist in relief. 

Stanley stepped out of the car, disheveled at once by the wind, and hastily put together. It was clear he’d stumbled directly out of bed into the car. Like Ford, he wisely kept behind the car door using it as a wind blocker.

“I came as soon as I could,” Stanley yelled over the wind. “What do you need me to do?”

Not for the first time, Ford’s heart swelled. It wasn't that long ago that he and Stanley reconciled their differences. But not nearly enough time had passed to make up for the time they’d lost together. Still, Stanley always pulled through. Even when it seemed like he didn't. It was the one thing Ford could count his brother on. 

“Do you see that fluorescent green light?” He yelled back, pointing to the twister. 

Stanley cupped a hand over his eyes and strained against the gale to see where he was pointing. “What are we looking at?”

“The source of the phenomenon,” Ford wasn’t sure if his brother heard him. The rumble of the twister was growing steadily louder. A continuous scream, much like the roar of a train but in a stray drone. A loud continuous thunderclap. “We need to drive into the center of the storm and shoot it.”

“What?” Stanley looked at him sharply. His voice strained. “You want to _what_?”

“I drive, you shoot,” Ford hollered. Gods, his throat hurt. “It’s the only way to stop that thing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes!”

Stanley stares at him for a beat. Then, finally. “Alright, you can count on me.”

He climbed into the passenger seat and Ford slammed his heel to the pedal. 

With a sudden burst of speed, the Jeep went barreling through the walls of the twister. Had the Jeep not been going as fast as it was it would have been caught by the swirling clouds and tossed up into the storm, but Ford’s calculations held true. 

As the twister moved, Ford drove along with it. Visibility was shockingly clear inside the funnel. They could not see through the walls of the twister but within it was a clear patch.

Stanley curses as he peered out the window into the swirling clouds above him. “Only in Gravity Falls,” he muttered. “Try that in Kansas and you’d be dead. What am I aiming for, Poindexter?”

“The cube.”

Stanley followed his gaze. “The what, now?” His eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Oh...”

High above them, in the center of the vortex was a green fluorescent cube. Ford estimated it was roughly the length of a school bus in height. He wanted to examine it more closely but he suspected if he wanted to disengage the phenomenon that wouldn’t be possible. The cube spun on its axis like an unbalanced top. Tendrils of lime-green plasma shot like bolts of lightning through the clouds, dragging the wind with it and pushing the storm into motion. 

Stanley pulled the crossbow into position and skeptically examined the bolts Ford had crafted for just this purpose. “What are these made of? Blown glass?”

“Quartz. I’ve found it usually has an interesting effect on paranormal phenomena. If we hit that cube with a quartz bolt the twister should disperse.” 

Stanley loaded the bolt. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Well,” Ford gazed up at the churning clouds as a plasma tendril bathed them in green light. “I suppose we’ll just have to hope the town evacuates in time.”

Stanley snorted. “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.” He raised the crossbow and took aim.  
  
  


* * *

Bill’s plan to fool the leech had not worked. It had not worked spectacularly.  
  
Sure, it hadn’t worked it out right away but the beast had worked it out more quickly than Bill had expected. One minute Bill was busy keeping the wiggle-worms quiet and distracted as he shuffled Mabel into a new hiding place and the next minute the trap-door to the attic burst open and Bill was scrambling to get back to Pinetree in time. Once the leech had its bulbous eyes locked on the kid it could focus on nothing else.

The leech skidded after him. Fortunately, it’s heavy body prohibited the creature from making sharp turns. Bill felt the beast's humid breath at his back, and the air rushing under the force of its weight. There was a loud clatter as it collided with a stack of boxes. A picture frame fell. The frame broke over the leech’s head and it shrieked in outrage. 

It turned to him, saliva oozing from its mouth and a fresh cut over the brow of its head.

Bill met its grim smile with a malicious laugh. “Finally taking me seriously now?” He taunted. “It’s too late to beg, pal. You’ve gone and made me mad.”

It growled, eyes lingering on Mason behind Bill. He could feel the creature’s mind calculating the distance, assessing the threat. Whatever it saw complied the leech to lower itself on all fours, hackles raised. 

Bill braced himself. His hand found something metallic, pointed, and cast iron, and with a familiar burning underneath his skin, he clenched his fist around it and waited.

The leech lunged. 

The weight of the creature pushed Bill into the sharp corner of a metal spring, pain erupted in his back. The cast iron sank deep and the leech shuddered.

Bill stared into the creature’s eyes with absolute loathing. Pain. Wraith. It all melted together into one molten soup of disappointment and regret and all the things he thought he didn’t deserve and all the things he knew he did. _Ford didn’t understand._ Bill was beginning to. He was beginning to and he hated it. He hated the rot in his gut and the clotting bitterness on his tongue and the guilt of knowing he’d changed his mind too late.

“I am sick and tired of everyone getting in my way!” Bill screamed. His arms shook as he shoved the weight of the thing back. The leech stopped struggling. Bill screamed and cried and stabbed the rotten bag of flesh over and over, letting out all his bent up frustration and loathing until his arms were coated with black.

The fight left him and Bill slumped to his knees. The metal prong clattered to the floor. His face felt suspiciously wet and gooey. 

Silence filled the cabin as he breathed. His lungs ached. Everything hurt.

The silence was broken by a sniffle.

In his emotional fit, he had nearly forgotten about Pinetree. 

Most mammals possessed a sense of self-preservation as early as they could move. Bill knew this, vaguely, as one does when they’ve read it somewhere and forgotten where they got the information form. Bill hated that he couldn't remember. He used to remember and it frightened him to realize that he couldn’t. 

It’s good to know the human species haven’t lost that much of their primal instinct. Good for them. They’ll avoid extinction for longer. 

While Bill had disemboweled the leech Pinetree had wisely wedged himself under the boxspring propped up in the corner. Instinct had instructed him to be quiet, fear had kept him that way. Some flesh-bags weren’t like that. They weren’t quiet when they should be. But Pinetree had sensed the danger. Even Shooting Star, where Bill had quickly hidden her, had remained quiet.

But now Pinetree was looking at him with watery eyes and a violent tremor through his little body and Bill was violently reminded of a rant Stanford had delivered to someone over the phone last week. He didn’t move when Pinetree crawled over to him and grasped onto his shirt.

Bill’s bloody fleshy heart leaped to his throat. Humans needed physical contact. Especially while little ones. They needed it, physically and psychologically. Pine tr- Mason needed physical contact and he needed a lot of it for his brain to wire right.

Ford had told Bill he couldn’t physically touch them. He had prohibited it.

He had also told Bill, in a roundabout way, to keep them safe. In not holding Mason, he was hurting him. Which, arguably, contradicted Ford’s first demand.

“Aw kid, he’s gonna kill me y’know.” There was something in his throat that made it difficult to breathe. Bill swallowed but the lump didn’t move.

Mason gripped his shirt not caring that it was covered in Leech-goo, and that very shortly he would be covered in fish-slop too. He clung so closely a lesser creature could be fooled into thinking he was attempting to burrow under their flesh. Bill flinched at the initial contact. Flash-creatures were so warm, every contact felt like a shock. It was the closest Bill thought he would ever come to burning. 

Mason didn’t move. He made a sound that was distinctly unhappy. Bill stared uselessly. He didn’t know how to do this. He’d seen Stanley and Stanford pick them up dozens of times and yet now the task seemed utterly impossible. 

Experimentally, Bill gave him a pat on the head. That didn’t seem quite right but Manson didn’t cry and Ford didn’t fall through the roof in a panicked frenzy. Reluctantly, Bill peeled Mason’s hands from his shirt and lifted up him under his arms to his chest. That seemed better. Ford always held them close to his chest, didn’t he?

Bill felt stiff and awkward and Mason was so warm and small tucked under his chin. He was just a fragile conglomerate of organic matter, bacteria, and molecules, and whole systems of micro-organisms that wouldn’t function properly for at least another year. Human mental development happened so slowly and they broke so easily and Bill was shocked but moreover frightened to find the idea made him uncomfortable. 

The rain had died down. Now the wind picked up.

Bill stood on shaky legs and stumbled over to the wardrobe and the crawlspace above it where Mabel was watching, thankfully smart enough to understand the concept of falling and had so far avoided the ledge. She had very little control of her body though and wobbled precariously. 

He stumbled a bit more, climbing up the wardrobe but Mason refused to let go and Bill didn’t care to try to pry him off again. 

Heaving himself into the crawlspace, one arm under Mason as he crawled the rest of the way, it took some maneuvering to manipulate his body to fit and leave room enough for Mabel and Mason, but after some squirming, he managed it. As soon as he was settled and thought to himself ‘oh, so this is what shock feels like,’ Mabel latched onto her brother and squirmed for a spot against his chest with him. 

Bill just let it happen. 

Ford was gonna kill him. Ford was gonna kill him twice and Stanley would burn his body afterward.

The rain plinked harmlessly on the roof. Ignorant to all things and content with itself. 

* * *

The drive home was relatively uneventful.

With the twister gone the sky had lightened considerably. The rain hadn’t stopped but was no longer a torrential downpour. Stanley offered to take the wheel. Ford almost refused him but swallowed down his protest when the car nearly swerved off the road.

It wasn’t until the car pulled into the familiar dirt road that led to the shack that Ford began to suspect something was not right.

His first clue was the empty driveway. 

His second, slightly more troubling clue, was the fact that the lights had been left off. Susan did not leave the lights off while she watched the twins. She could have been dropped off by a friend if her car wasn’t available but if the lights were off-

“You didn’t call Susan?” Stanley eyed the dark-windows as he pulled up next to the porch. 

Ford was already unbuckling his seat-pelt and reaching for the car door. “Of course I did!”

Stanley went a little pale and followed his brother up the front steps. “It’s probably not as bad as it looks, Ford.”  
  
“I left them alone with Bill for three hours, Lee! I’m shocked the shack hasn’t burned down.” Ford snapped. He fumbled with the keys.

“Aw, c’mon, Poindexter! if we could survive five days at the age of two with Great Aunt Petricia I’m sure Mabel and Mason can survive a night with Bill. He knows the kiddos are off-limits.”  
  
“I’m going to ignore the fact that you’re comparing our late aunt to a malicious entity.”  
  
Stanley shrugged. “Well, she was, wasn’t she.”  
  
“Metaphorically,” Ford conceded and pushed the door open. He flicked on the foyer light and froze mid-step, at once assaulted by a rancid smell that distinctly reminded him of rotten fish.

The shack was in shambles. The cabinets in the kitchen had been thrown open, their contents spilled across the countertops and onto the floor. Cereal. Flour. Sugar. Innumerable spices and substances crunched underfoot. The living room was even worse. The couch had been overturned, the TV knocked to the floor, the screen cracked and the playpen Ford had left Mabel and Mason in had been ripped into pieces. Someone had lit a fire in the fireplace, and a dark streak across the carpet suggested something had been dragged through it. 

For a terrifying moment panic seized him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. His thoughts spun, every possible scenario ran through his head, each worse than the last. He knew it would come to this. He knew it would and still he let himself hope otherwise, to pray that he would be proven wrong-

Ford felt a firm hand on his shoulder and took a deep breath. “C’mon, Poindexter, take it easy. Let’s piece together what happened.”  
  
“How can you be so calm about this?” Ford swallowed thickly. He pretended to ignore the way his hands shook.  
  
“One of us has to be. And I need that big brain of yours to get my niece and nephew back.” Stanley gave his shoulder another squeeze and Ford took another gulp of air.  
  
“Right.”  
  
Ford gathered himself together, he looked for Bill. He called his name then Mabel and Mason. He received no reply. His heart sank like a stone. He and Stanley went through the shack with a fine-tooth comb. They discovered that the bedrooms and the guest bedroom had been left largely untouched. There was no sign of Bill or the twins in the closets, under the bed, or in the pantry. He even checked the cabinet under the bathroom sink. (Bill had gone in there once after an argument with Ford to sulk. Stanley found him and Ford pretended he hadn’t heard the softer conversation they’d had.)  
  
At a loss, Ford returned to the living room. By all accounts, it seemed to be the epicenter of whatever had taken place. And re-examining the floor by the couch he discovered the carpet was wet with something that strangely reminded him of the slime trail left behind by a snail.

On a whim, Ford turned to open up the crawlspace underneath the stairwell, recalling that Bill liked to hide there as well. Though mostly he seemed to use the space to hide things. He couldn’t fathom why. He would have pegged Bill as claustrophobic given the sensory deprivation the dream demon was experiencing, but the opposite seemed to be true. Bill craved numerous sensations at once. 

But when Ford reached for where the crawl space should be, he found he couldn’t find it. Ford adjusted his glasses and squinted. He felt along the wall. Where he saw only wood paneling he came into contact with something that felt smooth and metallic. What on earth...  
  
“Lee! Come look at this!”  
  
Stanley peered into the living-room. He blinked at the wall Ford stooped next to. “Ford, do you realize our staircase is missing?”  
  
Ford stood and felt among the wall. “Actually... I believe it’s right about... ah-ha!” His palm met empty-air and he fell forward through the illusion.  
  
“Christ!” Stanley said behind him. “That’s freaky.”  
  
Ford stood and pulled Stanley through. It was a basic level enchantment. Ford had seen Bill pull more complex illusions. He was surprised this one seemed so flimsy but perhaps, he shouldn’t be. After all, Bill was not at his full strength. 

Stanley let out another exploitive. Ford turned to find his brother had slipped. There was something black and tar-like dripping down the steps. The stairwell to the attic smelled heavily of burnt fish.  
  
Entering the attic, Ford was finally confronted with the source of the smell. Amidst toppled cardboard boxes, broken lampshades, off to the left under one sloping wall, lay a lump of smooth inky flesh. A leech, Ford’s mind supplied. Or the approximation of one. Ford estimated that it was around the size of a fully grown bear and seemed to possess the hind-quarters of one.  
  
“Is it dead?” Stanley asked. He nudged it with his boot. “Yep. It’s dead.”  
  
“I imagine it would be difficult to survive that.” Ford eyed the fire-poker sticking out of the creature’s side. “Bill! Bill, are you up here? Answer me!” 

For a moment he heard nothing. Then a hollow shuffle. Something moving.  
  
Ford’s brow furrowed as he tried to locate the sound.  
  
And there, at the end of the attic above a wardrobe Stanley may have inherited from Filbrick Pines, he discovered a small door. Another crawlspace. Ford did not remember including it in his floor plan but here it was.  
  
“Bill?” He called and with Stanley’s help, moved the wardrobe out of the way so they could pry the door open.  
  
Bill stared back at him, eyes unblinking. One eye fogged over milky white and the other liquid gold. He’d somehow folded himself into the narrow space like a large lanky cat. And in his arms, blinked Mabel and Mason. 

“What happened? Are they hurt?” Ford asked in a rush of air, he tried to peer into the crawlspace but the minimal lighting in the attic and the fact that the crawlspace was located at the very end of the room made it difficult to see clearly. 

He reached into the crawlspace and pulled Mabel into his arms. She had cobwebs in her hair and dust particles on her onesie but seemed content. She smiled and reached for his face. Her ease shocked him.

Bill rolled his eyes and said with a voice that sounded surprisingly hoarse to Ford. “Of course not! I’ve been asked to do a lot of things, Stanford, _lots of things_. It’s not the first time one of you summoned me for protection.”

Standford eyed him skeptically. “I find that hard to believe.” Still, something in him eased in relief. 

Ford handed Mabel to Lee. 

“I hope they are not traumatized.” He tried to reach for Mason but the child seemed reluctant to let go of Bill’s shirt. Ford frowned at the state of it.

“Psh, they probably won’t remember it in two years,” Stanley said. He blew a raspberry and Mabel giggled. “Yeesh, kid you stink. What’d you do, crawl into a fish trawler?”

“What makes ya think a persistent fear of giant leeches, bears and existential dread is bad for you?” Bill gingerly peeled Mason’s fingers from his shirt. Mason whined a warning in his throat but was quickly pacified by the offer to cling to Ford’s chest.

“In small quantities, yes,” Ford reluctantly conceded. He cradled Mason in his arms eyeing Bill. “But not for someone under the age of _one._ You have the tendency to ignore the concept of moderation, Bill.” 

Bill shrugged but made no move to untangle himself from the tight knot he had molded himself into. 

Ford’s frown deepened. He shifted to support Mason in his other arm. “I’d like to know what happened. What is that thing, why is it here?”  
  
Bill’s lip curled. “Have you ever heard of Wewe Gombel?” 

Ford straightened his back. It felt rare these days that Bill felt compelled to give anything freely. He could no longer trust anything Bill had to say without a grain of salt. Ford wasn’t the naive scholar he once was. He had promised himself he would never let Bill manipulate him again. But all things considered, the situation had gotten better lately. Despite himself and despite his reservations he wanted that trend to continue. If Bill Cipher was willing to give, he was willing to listen. (Guilt and shame kept the thought squashed deep down, but every now and then it resurfaced from the deep blue. Nostalgic and melancholic. Bittersweet and terribly humbling and sour. Stanford wouldn’t dare let himself _hope_.)

The twins were safe. Bill had kept his word. 

As the smell in the attic was ghastly, the rest of Bill’s explanation came in the living room, then the hall as Ford insisted on finding something else for him to wear while Stanley took care of Mabel and Mason, who also desperately needed to be changed. The rest of the shack would come later. Maybe in the afternoon. Maybe the next day. The birds were singing and with them came a new wave of exhaustion.

(Later that week, Ford filed a new entry in his journal for a creature he dubbed “child-eating leech-bear” not to be confused with the “multi-bear” who, to his knowledge, did not actively pursue the consumption of children. After that, he wrote an entry for Wewe Gumbel who seemed infinitely less malicious considering Bill’s disdain for her. And set aside a note for himself to look into the concerning frequency of supernatural creatures associated with child-abduction in remote towns. Surely, there was something he could do to prevent it?)

And when Bill felt he had said enough, Stanford took a moment to process. 

If someone had asked him earlier that day if he could ever imagine trusting Bill Cipher again, he would have snapped a stern: _no, never_. Betrayal burned hot in his throat after all this time. But looking past the lines, to draw the points between what Bill did not say to what Ford could conclude from the scene... and the fact that, despite all reason to the contrary, Bill had not done the sadistic, malicious thing he could have.

He had done the opposite in fact.   
  
He kept his word. He had kept the twins safe.

There were only two words he could say. 

“Thank you.” He meant it. From the bottom of his heart, he meant it. “ _Thank you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> *pokes fandom with a stick* 
> 
> Hmmm... it is awake? it's hard to tell. 
> 
> Let me know if any tags need adjusting or adding. The next chapter will be up shortly.


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